Silver Orchid
by Airliena
Summary: What happens when a girl who has developed super powers from a tragic and scarring childhood meets the Flash? Will she join the Justice League or try flying solo? Elaine Summers only has one life to live how will she use it?
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1 The Accident

I wasn't prepared for the day my family died. The authorities most likely called it a car accident, but an accident it was not. It had been planned, a crime purposely committed by an insane lunatic, a man that went by the name of Jorgaf Kilay.

I was only a child when it happened, barely five years old. On that day my family went on a road trip vacation for the summer, abandoning our home in Central City, the unthinkable happened. I lost everything that day and was submerged in a nightmare that would control me for the rest of my childhood.

I was bouncing up and down in my seat, barely able to contain my excitement. "Tell me again mommy, where are we going?"

"Elaine sweetheart I told you a million times, we're going to Silver Dollar City in Branson for vacation. You'll like it there I'm sure, you're older brother Jordan went when he was about your age and he had the time of his life. Why don't you tell her about it Jordan?" my mom asked of my ten year old brother in the seat next to me.

"Oh it's great!" Jordan enthused, "But I bet your too big of a sissy to ride on the big roller coasters like I did. You'll have to stay down below and watch because you'll get too scared."

"Will not!" I shouted angrily at him. Jordan could be so mean sometimes. I wished he didn't have to brag all the time about how he was so much better.

"Will too!" he shot back, sticking his tongue out at me. I smacked his arm enraged.

"Hey, hey!" my dad called, frowning at us through the rearview mirror. "No hitting, and Jordan don't antagonize your sister, we still have a long drive ahead of us, we're only about twenty miles from Keystone City."

"Alright, fine," we both grumbled restlessly. Squirming in my seat I turned to look out my window. There was nothing around us, just open fields for as far as the eye could see. Trees and farms were the only imagery on the hilly grass plain. I squinted at a hill in the distance, there appeared to be a man standing there looking at us but I couldn't be sure.

"Daddy…" I started to say when a loud explosion reached my ears from the front seat.

My mother started to scream my fathers name, "Frank, Frank! Oh god No!" Horrified I turned to look at my fathers charred form as the car swerved and rolled down the embankment without its driver.

My mothers cries were hysterical and my brother's and my screams filled the air. On impact with the ground I saw my brother be thrown from his seat and tossed through the window. My mother served a similar fate. There was broken glass everywhere, my face stung and tears streamed down my cheeks. My body ached with pain and flames started to consume the car.

I struggled with my seat belt as I realized I was the only one left in the vehicle except my dad. Unclasping it I crawled over the debris and twisted metal to his side by the wheel. "Daddy? Daddy?" I was frantic to get him to wake up. I was trapped and he was the only one who could help me. I leaned over to shake his shoulder and realized he was no longer breathing. I felt electric fear rip its way through my heart, and my shriek let loose all the agony I felt at that moment, it was as if my very soul were being cut through with a knife.

"Please, please, please," I sobbed, "please wake up." I'd never felt more afraid in my life. Everything was happening too fast for me to take in.

A metal door was ripped off of its frame and hands reached into the overturned car and pulled me out. "Oh he won't be waking up any time soon my dear, and neither will the rest of your family I'm afraid. A pity, I could have used your brother. Silly children and their notion they don't need to wear seat belts. Ah well, I suppose you'll do well enough to serve my purpose. You look strong enough, after all you did survive the crash. I'll have to patch you up some though before I can start, children always make the best test subjects, it's so much easier to break their will."

The man that had spoken was as ugly as his words. A scar pulled itself along his face from his temple all the way to his jaw, slashing along his eye leaving it inflamed and red. It wasn't his misshapen face that lead me to fear him however but the look in his eyes. His hideousness did nothing to disguise the cruelty in his face. A possessive gleam filled his gaze that sent my stomach churning.

"No!" I gasped trying to get away from him, but his bony hands dug into my arms. The man's black wispy hair, streaked with shocks of white, blew frantically around his face, enforcing his deranged appearance. I craned my neck to see past him, looking for help, when I saw them. My mother and brother lay limply on the ground. Blood soaked their clothes and their bodies were so mangled it was difficult to identify them. I froze as recognition dawned upon me. I was alone, so terribly, terribly alone.

"Ah yes I see you've spotted the bodies. Sad business that, I never do like wasting life so, but it can't be prevented. The parents of the children always have to die, no matter how much I wish I could do some tests on them. The younger the subjects the better I say!" he said in a mock cheerful tone.

"No no no no no no no no," I choked, "This isn't happening, I'll wake up, I'll wake up, I'll wake up," I was chanting to myself now, in shock.

"Oh but it is." the man in front of me grinned madly. "You my dear are now the property of Jorgaf Kilay. What my darling child is your name?" He asked it as though he already knew the answer.

"E-El-Elaine," I managed to sob out. My heart was breaking inside me. "Please, just-just let me go home." A pointless question, there was no home I had to go to now, but anything would be better than staying near this man and my family's lifeless forms.

"Let me think about that. Hmm… No." Jorgaf cackled madly. "Now how about you say we split this scene huh? It's not a good idea to hang around a place where one committed a crime. The bomb I planted underneath the steering wheel of the car did work quite nicely though didn't it? The authorities undoubtedly wont even notice it in the wreckage. Anyway, as I was saying, I think it's time to go. One of the advantages of being from the future and a genius, is that I get to time travel, a useful invention if I do say so myself. Now let's see, Ah! My fortress in the 18th century will do. It's even just outside the future Keystone City and is equipped with everything I'll need for you. No one will ever bother to look for a missing child in the past, I knew there was a reason that I had that built."

With the end of his rant complete I watched shell shocked as he drew a small wrist watch from his pocket and put it on, fiddling with its dials as he did so. With a push of a button a bright light enveloped us and his vice like grip on me increased. The aching in my body soon became painfully aware to me. A gash in my arm had blood trickling down my hand, and at least one of my ribs must be broken. I could no longer stay awake, whatever strange doorway this man pulled us through used the last of my strength. I succumbed to darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note; I don't own the Justice league or any of it's characters, only the ones I've made up.**

Chapter 2 The Nightmare begins

When I woke up I was strapped to a metal table in a brightly lit florescent room. There were no windows inside of it and around me I could see various carts with sharp objects placed upon them. I strained against my bonds, trying to break free, when a metal door behind me clicked open.

"Ah, I see you've finally woken up, all the better, it will do nicely for you to see how the rest of your life will ensue." the crackle of his voice alerted me to his presence even before he rounded the table revealing himself to me. Dressed in a white lab coat that had several stains on it that looked disturbingly like blood, his eyes shone with a wild excitement.

Jorgaf pulled a surgical mask from a container by the side of the table and secured it carefully around his face. Drawing a long syringe from his pocket he meticulously filled it with a clear liquid from a jar labeled Substance A. When he was done he turned to me and laughed at me with his piercing eyes, "Did you really think you were dreaming my dear? I'm afraid your nightmare has just begun." My screams echoed through the halls, but there was no one there to hear them.

Three years later

I looked at myself in the dirty mirror of my small confined bedroom. My now eight years of life showed stark differences from the once five year old child that had argued with her brother. My brown hair was shoulder length and raggedly cut. In the depths of my deep brown eyes was a hollowness and sorrow that could only be found in a person who had undergone great tragedy. The face that looked back at me was covered in grime. My arms and legs showed jagged scars, some still red from recent incisions. I lifted up my thin shirt to view my small stomach. Underneath a bandage that had been wrapped around a three inch cut, my ribs could be seen beneath my skin. I was tired, undernourished, and worst of all had almost given up hope of escaping. I'd tried to get away before but it never worked, I was always caught before I could reach the main doors of the building. This time though it would be different.

I slowly unwrapped the cloth from around my waist, and stared angrily at the stitches that now closed up my wound. These were the worst, the times where I couldn't place what it was that had happened to me in the examination room. When Jorgaf put me to sleep there was no way of telling what he was doing to me. At least when I was awake I could know, the pain was bearable then.

He had infused me with metal before, enhancing my strength, only to quickly remove the plates to prevent me from escaping. I had submerged myself in water by his direction to the point of drowning to test some new theory or other of his. I'd run on a treadmill at speeds beyond that of any man could while he watched gleefully from the side, shocking me with electricity if I ever tried to remove my bonds. The one thing he always made sure of though was to remove my superpowers after he'd granted them, he didn't want to risk me finding a way out.

This last test had almost been unbearable, Jorgaf had inserted something into my stomach that gave me the ability to shape shift. When he was done experimenting all the different animals that I could change too he'd removed whatever it was that had given me the ability. He had made one important flaw though in his work, he had let me see the code he had punched in to open the door to the testing room. This was the chance I'd been waiting for, I now had a way to escape.

The door to my cell slid open and Jorgaf smiled in at me with his insane grin that I'd learned to detest several times over. "Come along dear," he said dryly, "You know the drill." and indeed I did, I'd memorized it by heart. He would lead me to one room or another strap me down and then leave for an hour or two to prepare, when he came back the horror ensued. I followed obediently behind him as he led me down the hall and into an examination room to strap me down. What he didn't notice though was the small sliver of glass I'd removed from my bedroom mirror, I held it closely in my palm, feeling the bite of it cutting into my skin. As he left he made sure to give my restraints an extra good tug and then locked the door behind him.

As soon as he was gone I wiggled my wrist from the binding it had been placed in. After so many years of lack of enough food Jorgaf had forgotten how thin my hands had gotten. Quickly I unbound the rest of my body. 'Hurry up! Hurry up! You don't have enough time!' I thought to myself anxiously. 'This is your last chance, you're not going to make it much longer here.' The metal door that would open up into the hallway mocked me with its strength, yet it could no longer keep me locked out. I typed in the code I had know memorized by heart "Come on, Come on," I muttered to myself. "66782951666427." I repeated aloud while pushing the buttons methodically. The door swished open with a satisfying beep and I sighed in relief.

Wasting no time I sprinted down the halls, turning left then right in the map I had slowly learned of the building over the years. Reaching the elevator I ran to its right uncovering the secret staircase I had seen on my last attempted escape, the elevator itself was too risky to wait for, that I had learned. The door panel in the wall was blended in carefully with the rest of the surrounding wall paper but my sharp eyes had quickly spotted it. I pulled it open and ran the three flights of stairs upwards, never once pausing for breath. At the top my breathing was hoarse and ragged but still I couldn't stop, I had reached the main level, all I had to do was open the front door using the same code and make it out of the surrounding wilderness.

As I started to type in the code a second time I heard the elevator behind me start to rise. "Oh crap" I muttered darkly. 'No not this time, this time I'm getting out, dead or alive' I thought determinedly, the hand that wasn't punching in numbers clutched the glass tighter. With a resounding beep the door opened, revealing the luscious green of a forest, a sight I hadn't seen since I'd come here. With that I ran, I ran until I could run no more and collapsed upon the soft ground. I looked back to see the building where I had been kept but was surprised to see, nothing.

'There must be a force field around it shielding it from view' I reasoned. I struggled to stand and jolted when a hand reached down to help me. My heart raced with fear as I looked up suspecting I'd see an evil leer but was surprised to find a boy about four years older than myself. He had dark hair and dark eyes and I suspected that he must be from a native tribe.

"Who are you?" he asked in a foreign tongue. I was shocked to see that I could understand him.

'He's Otoe' I thought 'Like my grandfather, I remember speaking to him in the Chiwere language before he died, I learned it faster then I even did English.'

"Please, you must help me," I replied in a similar tongue, "There is a man after me, he will hurt me if he finds me."

The boys eyes widened, with a sinking feeling I realized it wasn't from what I said but from something behind me.

"Elaine, you are such a naughty, naughty girl," Jorgaf scolded, "Making me run all this way after you. I must admit you were faster than I thought, you didn't think I'd really ever leave you alone did you? I keep video footage of all the rooms of my lab and constantly know where you are, there was never really any chance of you getting away. Now I'm afraid I'm going to have to dispose of you, you've used up your purpose, there is one last experiment you can do for me though and perhaps your new friend would like to participate?"

Suddenly I became horribly clear of what I had just done. The boy behind me had now been sucked into my nightmare. "Run!" I called to him in his language, "It's not safe!" He didn't listen, in fact he drew a bow and notched and arrow in it. He let the arrow fly but Jorgaf merely laughed and blasted it from the air with a laser gun.

"You must get help from your village!" I pleaded with him, "Run! It's the only way, I'll hold him off."

Realizing the dire situation the boy looked at me worriedly, "I'll be back" he promised, then disappeared swiftly into the forest.

"Such a shame, I suppose I'll have to let him go, it would be unwise to tamper with the past, well this far back anyway. A whole legion of people could disappear if I killed him. While that would be enjoyable I would rather not have one of them be me. Besides I only take children that are destined to die. You should consider yourself lucky Elaine, you got to live a whole three years longer than expected. You WOULD have been in a car accident with your family anyway, even if I hadn't been there to cause it, and you would have died then with the rest of them, I simply prolonged your existence. Consider your life as a gift to the betterment of science. There is one last thing you can do for me though. This gun," he stated pulling one from his lab coat, "Will fuse you with the very essence of a tree, you'll essentially become one until I come back to separate your particles. After about five hundred years you'll be able to manipulate nature itself. After I take you from the trees core of course. It's quite a long time to wait but it's better than just killing you. I'll be back to get you in the future, that is if your not cut down for logging." Jorgaf aimed the weapon at me and I did the only thing I could think of, I threw the piece of glass in my hand right at his heart.

His scream could be heard as blast of green light enfolded me from the gun. I felt myself being sucked into an oak tree to my right and closed my eyes. 'Being a tree couldn't be that bad could it?'

I tried to fight the pull but it didn't help. At least I thought, looking at Jorgaf's collapsed form, the mad scientist wouldn't be kidnapping any more children. I smiled peacefully and released my hold on the world for the moment. I felt myself be submerged into the tree's core and felt serene. Someday I would find a way to return to the world, but for now all I wanted to do was rest. I could feel the bright sunlight on my leaves and everything that moved around me appeared to do so slowly, the earth seemed to go to a stand still and creep along at a much slower pace. I could see for as far as my roots grew, but beyond that was a mystery to me. I relaxed into the oak and waited for whatever would come.


	3. Chapter 3

**Authors note; I don't own Justice League or its characters**

Chapter 3 Frozen in Time

As if half asleep I saw Jorgaf slowly get up and stagger away. With a flash of light he was gone. No! this can't happen! He can't go and do this to someone else. I tried to break free but I couldn't move, I was stuck, frozen in time, unable to change. I wanted to cry then, but not even that could I accomplish. The branches and leaves of my tree drooped as if responding to my agony. I had failed. I couldn't even save myself let alone anyone else, and now I was stuck here, maybe forever.

It seemed I watched from a distance when the native tribe warriors came running to stand in front of me at the place where I had been not moments before. Oh if only they had gotten here a little sooner. Suddenly the boy that I had met turned and looked right at me. No at the tree, I corrected myself, and yet his expression seemed to change. A look of horror and fascination crossed his features, he came right up to me and laid his hand on my face. No it was the bark of the tree, why was it so hard for me to accept my fate? I was no different than the plant itself now. He couldn't possibly see me. Or wait, maybe he could, maybe I hadn't been sucked into the tree completely. It's possible that my face still protruded from the tree, overlaid with the bark from its trunk.

My guess must have been correct because the boy began to speak to me. "I am sorry I could not help you little girl." he said mournfully. Several tears filled his eyes and I watched as an older boy put a hand on his shoulder to comfort him. He must be his older brother, their features were similar and the same look of horror was pasted on their faces. I felt bad for putting them in this position. I so desperately wanted to tell them that it wasn't their fault and Jorgaf wouldn't be coming back to harm them.

Once again I tried to cry, something I hadn't allowed myself to do in a very long time. This time it seemed to work in a sense. Leaves scattered themselves from my branches and fell quietly down upon the warriors. As they landed upon their heads their eyes widened and looked up at me. Understanding seemed to light in my attempted rescuer's eyes as he held a leaf in his hand. He was listening to me, even though I was not speaking to him in a language known to man. I could carry my messages to them through the fallen pieces of myself that scattered upon them.

So I told them. I told them of my childhood and my family, of the day I was taken away by the man that killed them, and then of the years I spent in solitude locked up in an empty room waiting to be experimented on. But most of all I told them of how incredibly lonely I had been when I had spent those three years of my life in solitude.

When they left they promised to come back and visit me. They did too. After awhile though their visits became less and less frequent. In between people's coming and going I entered a dream like daze. I was not asleep but neither was I awake. Time passed and yet it seemed to me as if only seconds ticked by when it was in fact days. My boy was the only one who continued to see me on a regular basis. Stories of me soon spread through the village and if anyone ever needed advice or someone to talk to, they always came to me. I didn't always respond, it became harder and harder to speak as the winter months closed in. My leaves fell on their own and without them I couldn't speak to my visitors. Winter was always the hardest for me. Very few came to see me, and when they did they never stayed long. The only person I could count on to bring me news of the outside world was my boy. Over time I called him my shadow since he was one of the few that came to see me consistently.

A time came when even he didn't come though. I watched him grow older and find a wife. Once he brought his children to come see me and I enjoyed them considerably. Even as an old man he would occasionally visit, but one day he stopped. For almost a whole year I waited until finally a daughter of his came to tell me of his passing. That was the last human contact I had in a long while. Even though many, many, years passed I could not feel myself growing. Somehow, even though I could not see myself, I knew that I was still only a child. I watched as the friends I'd made grow up and die as I slowly grew older, a year seeming only a day to me. I knew this was not so, but my mind was lost to me when I was fused with the tree. I had kept my memories and emotions but not much more. It was a struggle to think of the future. As a tree all I knew was the past and the now, there was nothing else.

Finally all the villagers that had known me were gone. I became nothing more than a legend told by the campfire to the tribe. I was the tree whisperer ,the girl that would forever watch over the forest silent except for the rustle of branches.

More years passed, so many that I could no longer count them. I drifted into a deep slumber, dreaming about those first wonderful years when I had my friends to talk to. Now all that I knew were the squirrels and the birds that nested in my limbs. I was frozen in time for the course of almost 200 years when finally something happened to awaken me.


End file.
